Good morning.

Halloween in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 7:28 AM and sunset 5:47 PM, for 10h 19m 05s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 51.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Trick or Treat in the city limits is from 4 to 7 PM today.  Haunt responsibly.

On this day in 1968, the Milwaukee Bucks win their first game:

On this date the Milwaukee Bucks claimed their first victory, a 134-118 win over the Detroit Pistons in the Milwaukee Arena. The Bucks were 0-5 at the time, and Wayne Embry led Milwaukee with 30 points

Recommended for reading in full —  Trump’s unconstitutional proposal, using Ivanka to escape  culpability for bigotry, investors sue Trump for fraud, Czech spies tracked Trump in the 80s, and video of a family of bears breaking into a photographer’s blind  —

George T. Conway III and Neal Katyal write Trump’s proposal to end birthright citizenship is unconstitutional:

Birthright citizenship sprang from the ashes of the worst Supreme Court decision in U.S. history, Dred Scott v. Sandford, the 1857 decision that said that slaves, and the children of slaves, could not be citizens of the United States. The blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans was shed to repudiate that idea.

Afterward, the drafters of the 14th Amendment declared in their very first sentence, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The drafters were motivated by their utter revulsion toward slavery and a system that relegated people to subordinate political status because of their birth. They weren’t thinking of, or concerned with, any exceptions to birthright citizenship other than the absolutely essential.

And what they wrote was simple and clear. Both proponents and opponents of the language at the time knew exactly what it meant: Virtually anyone born in the United States is a citizen. In 1898, the Supreme Court affirmed just that: It held that the “Fourteenth amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory” — “including all children here born of resident aliens.” The exception? “Two classes of cases” in which the United States could not apply its laws to foreigners under historic Anglo-American legal principles: “children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign state.”

Neither of those narrow exceptions supports what Trump proposes to do by executive order. He is threatening, with the stroke of a pen, to declare certain people who are born in the United States ineligible for citizenship — despite the plain words of the 14th Amendment.

Molly Jong-Fast writes Trump Is Using Ivanka As A Prop To Whitewash Anti-Semitism:

Because you know who doesn’t need a Jewish daughter to prove he’s not an anti-Semite when he goes to visit grieving Jews? A person who’s not an anti-Semite.

….

But why does the president need to keep insisting that he doesn’t hate blacks or Jews? Why the need for these human props?

Because his policies are so blatantly racist and anti-Semitic. From his Muslim ban to his recent interest in repealing the fourteenth amendment, Trump is constantly on the defensive because his policies are so blatantly unfavorable to ethnic and religious minorities.

At the end of the day, Ivanka Trump is her father’s greatest grift: the Jew who enables anti-Semitism, just as she is the woman who enables his misogyny.

 Jonathan O’Connell reports Trump defrauded investors in marketing scheme, lawsuit says:

At issue are promotional spots and speeches that Trump made on behalf of marketing company ACN, also known as American Communications Network, which charged $499 for the chance to sell video phones licensed by the company, and sometimes extracted thousands of dollars later to have a chance of recouping the money.

Trump earned $450,000 each for three speeches he gave for ACN, according to his government disclosure form, but in marketing videos he told potential investors that the opportunity came “without any of the risks most entrepreneurs have to take” and that his endorsement was “not for any money.”

The plaintiffs allege that the investments were a sham and that Trump and his family promoted them — including twice on his TV show “Celebrity Apprentice” — despite knowing they were fraudulent.

In a 164-page complaint filed with the Southern District of New York, the plaintiffs ask for damages including financial relief and a ruling barring the Trumps and their company from promoting such offers in the future.

The Committee to Investigate Russia writes Czech Spies Tracked Trump in the 80s:

The Guardian reveals that the Statni bezpecnost (StB), the Czechoslovakian intelligence service, first noticed Donald Trump when he was a celebrity-seeking real estate developer more than 40 years ago.

The StB had been interested in Trump since 1977, when he married a Czechoslovakian-born woman, Ivana Zelnickova. News of the wedding reached the StB bureau in Zlin, the town in Moravia where Ivana grew up and where her parents lived. Ivana’s father, Milos, regularly gave the StB information on his daughter’s visits from the US and his son-in-law’s burgeoning career.

The StB’s work on Donald and Ivana intensified in the late 1980s, after Trump let it be known he was thinking of running for president. The StB’s first foreign department sat up. Inside the Soviet bloc, Czechoslovakia’s spies were reputed to be skilled professionals, competent and versatile English speakers who were a match for the CIA and MI6.

(…)

Jarda was one of four StB collaborators who spied on the Trumps during the cold war. Jarda’s real name was Jaroslav Jansa …

… Now aged 74, and living in an apartment bloc on the outskirts of Prague, Jansa is reluctant to talk about his past. When the Guardian and the Czech magazine Respekt knocked on his door, he refused to open it. In an email, he said he was tired and wanted to be left in peace. He added: “You are trying to put me in the tomb.”

(…)

It’s unclear to what degree the KGB and StB shared or coordinated Trump material. The two spy agencies worked closely together, signing cooperation agreements in 1972 and October 1986. The KGB was always the dominant partner – it would have closely monitored Trump when he and Ivana visited the USSR in summer 1987, following a Kremlin invitation.

  Watch a Family Of Bears Try Breaking Into Photographers Hideout:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of fifty-five.  Sunrise is 7:27 AM and sunset 5:49 PM, for 10h 21m 41s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s School Board will meet tonight (for an operational referendum listening session) at 6 PM.

On this day in 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Radio Theatre perform a radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds:

“The War of the Worlds” is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode on Sunday, October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network, directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It became famous for causing panic among the audience; the scale of that panic is disputed, however, as the program had relatively few listeners.[2]

….

In the days after the adaptation, widespread outrage was expressed in the media. The program’s news-bulletin format was described as deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the broadcasters and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.^[2] Nevertheless, the episode secured Welles’s fame as a dramatist.

Recommended for reading in full —  New emails call into question Gov. Walker’s claims about the Lincoln Hills prison review, Trump’s new NAFTA is bad for dairy farmers, how the Trump family pushed a conspiracy theory, naming those responsible for bigotry, and video explaining how a vortex helps dandelions fly —

Matthew Simon reports New emails call into question Gov. Walker’s answer about canceling independent Lincoln Hills youth prison review:

New emails, obtained after months of records requests by 7 Investigates, call into further question the answer Gov. Scott Walker has given about the former head of a national prison organization saying the governor’s staff ordered former corrections secretary Ed Wall to stop an independent Lincoln Hills review as reports of inmate abuse and staff attacks were about to become public in 2015.

The emails, written two weeks before Gov. Walker said he was learning about the Lincoln Hills’ crisis for the first time, show then-Corrections Secretary Ed Wall telling state Justice Department leaders he was attempting to obtain the independent review.

“We are arranging to have an outside agency with experience in the operation of juvenile facilities come in to do an assessment of the institution, security operations, policies, training, report structures, complaints and staffing,” Wall wrote on Nov. 18, 2015.

As 7 Investigates first reported, the retired executive director of the national non-profit Association of State Correctional Administrators, George Camp, confirmed Wall had sent him a copy of the letter dated two days before Gov. Walker said he was first learning about the youth prison scandal on Dec. 2, 2015, and was ordering Wall to take “aggressive action.”

Reuters reports NAFTA deals leave US dairy farmers behind:

The dairy industry was a sticking point in the contentious renegotiations of the free trade deal between the U.S., Canada and Mexico that concluded last month.

U.S. President Donald Trump demanded concessions from the protected Canadian dairy industry and said on Twitter that Canada was hurting U.S. farmers with high tariffs. After Canada gave some ground, Trump claimed a big victory and said farmers would have more export options.

But Canada opened less than 4 percent of its dairy market to U.S. farmers – a concession unlikely to make much of a dent in U.S. oversupply or improve the lot of farmers like Fritsche, producers on both sides of the border say.

 Aaron Blake explains How the Trumps and conservative media helped mainstream a conspiracy theory now tied to tragedy:

What’s as notable is how concern about promoting theories that may touch on those things is no longer so taboo. The idea that Soros, a wealthy, liberal Jewish donor, was funding the caravan in fact dates to the last time a caravan was headed to the U.S.-Mexico border in April. But while it had a difficult time getting beyond the pages of Infowars back then, this time it had some Republican congressmen, cable-news talkers and a president’s son to push it.

The theory began proliferating in mid-October in the form of questions about who was funding the latest caravan — without invoking Soros specifically.

“I want to talk a little bit about who is funding the caravan,” Fox News’s Laura Ingraham said Oct. 16. She noted that the Honduran “foreign ministry spokesman cited political sectors as culpable — unidentified political influences. Somebody is funding these caravans.”

Jennifer Rubin writes Enough platitudes: Let’s name names:

Trump has eradicated red lines of civility, refused to condemn neo-Nazis and offered a steady diet of grotesque stereotypes of immigrants. He has demonized the press and raised fear of foreign terrorists embedded among refugees. His campaign and now his presidency fan the flames of white grievance; he has done more to mainstream nonfactual conspiracies than any president. To say he bears no moral or political responsibility when disturbed or fringe characters hear him, take him seriously, extrapolate from his remarks and engage in horrible acts is willful blindness. He is not solely responsible. He is not mainly responsible. But the guy with the biggest megaphone on the planet is partly responsible when unbalanced people are inspired by his toxic rhetoric and that of followers whom he refuses to repudiate.

The uptick in racial violence, anti-Semitic acts and hateful rhetoric that have become omnipresent in the Trump years did not arise out of thin air. (And for now, I’ll leave the absolute refusal to address any reasonable gun laws out of it; but in that, the National Rifle Association and its obedient minions are hardly blameless.) We must all be more specific in identifying names of those who share responsibility for the toxic fumes that violent, unstable people inhale. So here goes.

Rupert Murdoch, the executives, on-air talent and shareholders of Fox need to self-reflect. Fox is home to anti-immigrant cranks such as Lou Dobbs and Laura Ingraham. It’s where the caravan is attributed to Jewish billionaire George Soros, where Sean Hannity leads his audience to believe immigrants are especially prone to commit crimes and where Tucker Carlson has adopted the language of white nationalism, decrying diversity in America. Unless and until Fox cleans up its act — drop conspiracies made up out of whole cloth, end demonization and hysteria about immigrants, and stop invoking Soros to explain every political threat (real or imagined) — people of good will should not appear on Fox News, advertise on it or watch it.

How a Vortex Helps Dandelions Fly:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-three.  Sunrise is 7:26 AM and sunset 5:50 PM, for 10h 24m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 74.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s School Board will meet tonight (for a strategic planning discussion) at 6 PM.

On this day in 1864, the 38th Wisconsin Infantry participates in a reconnaissance mission to Harper’s Run, Virginia. They returned with two men wounded.

Recommended for reading in full — Secretive moves in the Wisconsin legislature, Trump’s incitement, Jewish agency fulfilling Biblical injunction to aid immigrants drew attention of mass murderer, Russian disinformation on Facebook, and video explaining the expression ‘foot the bill’   —

  CV Vitolo-Haddad and Dee J. Hall report Last-minute surprises and secretive moves hide Wisconsin lawmakers’ actions from public view:

Since 2010, when voters swept Republicans into power, Wisconsin legislators have increasingly used such secretive maneuvers to keep the public in the dark about major spending and policy changes, interviews and records show.

An investigation by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism found the Legislature systematically diminishes the voices of the public by:

— Introducing budget amendments at the end of the approval process with no public notice or debate.

— Approving anonymous, last-minute budget motions containing a grab bag of changes, including major policy items that have nothing to do with state spending.

— Changing the scope and impact of a bill after its public hearing has been held, which excludes regular citizens from having meaningful influence on legislation before it is enacted.

Adam Serwer writes Trump’s Caravan Hysteria Led to This (“The president and his supporters insisted that several thousand Honduran migrants were a looming menace—and the Pittsburgh gunman took that seriously”):

Ordinarily, a politician cannot be held responsible for the actions of a deranged follower. But ordinarily, politicians don’t praise supporters who have mercilessly beaten a Latino man, as “very passionate.” Ordinarily, they don’t offer to pay supporters’ legal bills if they assault protesters on the other side. They don’t praise acts of violence against the media. They don’t defend neo-Nazi rioters as “fine people.” They don’t justify sending bombs to their critics by blaming the media for airing criticism. Ordinarily, there is no historic surgein anti-Semitism, much of it targeted at Jewish critics, coinciding with a politician’s rise. And ordinarily, presidents do not blatantly exploit their authority in an effort to terrify white Americans into voting for their party. For the past few decades, most American politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, have taken care not to urge their supporters to take matters into their own hands. Trump did everything he could to fan the flames, and nothing to restrain those who might take him at his word.

Many of Trump’s defenders argue that his rhetoric is mere shtick. That his attacks, however cruel, aren’t taken 100 percent seriously by his supporters. But to make this argument is to concede that following Trump’s statements to their logical conclusion could lead to violence against his targets, and it is only because most do not take it that way, that the political violence committed on Trump’s behalf is as limited as it currently is.

….

The apparent spark for the worst anti-Semitic massacre in American history was a racist hoax inflamed by a U.S. president seeking to help his party win a midterm election. There is no political gesture, no public statement, and no alteration in rhetoric or behavior that will change this fact. The shooter might have found a different reason to act on a different day. But he chose to act on Saturday, and he apparently chose to act in response to a political fiction that the president himself chose to spread, and that his followers chose to amplify.

 Miriam Jordan reports HIAS, the Jewish Agency Criticized by the Shooting Suspect, Has a History of Aiding Refugees:

When Mazen Hasan had to flee his native Iraq because his work for the American military had drawn threats on his life, it was a Jewish refugee resettlement agency called HIAS that helped him and his family to settle in Pittsburgh.

“They did everything they can to help us and make it easy to adjust to a new life here,” said Mr. Hasan, 61, an engineer who arrived in the United States in 2014.

HIAS is one of nine agencies with contracts from the State Department to help refugees acclimate to the United States. It has aided immigrants with diverse talents from all corners of the world, including the co-founders of Google and WhatsApp.

It is also the target of many anti-Semitic rants posted on social media by Robert Bowers, the suspect in the mass shooting on Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh — including one post published only a few hours before the shooting. Eleven worshipers were killed in the attack.

 Dana Priest, James Jacoby, and Anya Bourg report Russian disinformation on Facebook targeted Ukraine well before the 2016 U.S. election:

In the spring of 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was desperate for Mark Zuckerberg’s help. His government had been urging Facebook to stop the Kremlin’s spreading of misinformation on the social network to foment distrust in his new administration and to promote support of Russia’s invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine.

To get Zuckerberg’s attention, the president posted a question for a town hall meeting at Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters. There, a moderator read it aloud.

“Mark, will you establish a Facebook office in Ukraine?” the moderator said, chuckling, according to a video of the assembly. The room of young employees rippled with laughter. But the government’s suggestion was serious: It believed that a Kiev office, staffed with people familiar with Ukraine’s political situation, could help solve Facebook’s high-level ignorance about Russian information warfare.

“You know, over time it’s something that we might consider,” the chief executive responded. “So thank you for — the Ukrainian president — for writing in. I don’t think we’ve gotten that one before.”

In the three years since then, officials here say the company has failed to address most of their concerns about Russian online interference that predated similar interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The tactics identified by officials, such as coordinated activity to overwhelm Facebook’s system and the use of impostor accounts, are the same as in the 2016 contest — and continue to challenge Facebook ahead of next month’s midterm elections.

 So, Why Do We Say Costs Can be Footed By Someone?:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see occasional showers with a high of forty-nine.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 5:52 PM, for 10h 26m 54s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 83.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1886, the Pres. Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty:

A ceremony of dedication was held on the afternoon of October 28, 1886. President Grover Cleveland, the former New York governor, presided over the event.[100] On the morning of the dedication, a parade was held in New York City; estimates of the number of people who watched it ranged from several hundred thousand to a million. President Cleveland headed the procession, then stood in the reviewing stand to see bands and marchers from across America. General Stone was the grand marshal of the parade. The route began at Madison Square, once the venue for the arm, and proceeded to the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan by way of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, with a slight detour so the parade could pass in front of the World building on Park Row. As the parade passed the New York Stock Exchange, traders threw ticker tape from the windows, beginning the New York tradition of the ticker-tape parade.[101]

Recommended for reading in full — Trump’s attacks on the media, why Republicans prefer Trumpocracy, synagogue shooter’s online screed, mail bomber’s affinity with Russians, and video on the mystery of the eagle ray —

  Jim Rutenberg contends Trump’s Attacks on the News Media Are Working:

Shortly before federal authorities arrested Cesar Sayoc Jr. — a registered Republican with a criminal record whose social media accounts were filled with right-wing conspiracy memes — the president was back on Twitter.

“Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this ‘Bomb’ stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows — news not talking politics,” he wrote in a 10:19 a.m. post on Friday.

By referring to likely domestic terrorism as “this ‘Bomb’ stuff” and tying it to the coming midterm elections, Mr. Trump was making the not-so-veiled suggestion that the news media was exaggerating the story because of some political motivation. Even in a national crisis, he was sticking with his anti-media strategy.

The question is, is it working?

The short answer is yes. Increasingly, the president’s almost daily attacks seem to be delivering the desired effect, despite the many examples ofpowerful reporting on his presidency. By one measure, a CBS News poll over the summer, 91 percent of “strong Trump supporters” trust him to provide accurate information; 11 percent said the same about the news media.

Mr. Trump was open about the tactic in a 2016 conversation with Lesley Stahl of CBS News, which she shared earlier this year: “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you,” she quoted him as saying.

 Sean Illing interviews David Frum on why Republicans chose Trumpocracy over democracy:

Sean Illing: What’s the main argument you’re making in this book?

David Frum: The argument I’m making is that Donald Trump’s rococo personality is outrageous and ridiculous and consumes all of our attention, but what we really need to pay attention to is his system of power. A president does not rule by personal authority and personal charisma. He is part of a system, and you have to understand that whole system — who supports him and why.

Sean Illing: Let’s talk about that system. Is it broken, or is it merely being tested?

David Frum: Trump has taken control of the Republican Party and the conservative media infrastructure. They started off opposing him; even Fox opposed him. He bent Fox to his will, and he defeated the organized Republican Party. He’s leveraged his control of the Republican Party, then, to dominate the American political system.

I think a lot of people console themselves by noting how little policy impact he’s having. Some people will note that to the extent that he’s having an impact, it’s a pretty conventional Republican policy vision. But that’s not what’s new about Trump.

What’s new is the way he’s shutting down the ethical standards of the US government, and thwarting the defense of the country against foreign espionage intervention in those elections.

Katie Zezima and Wesley Lowery report Suspected synagogue shooter appears to have railed against Jews, refugees online:

The postings, which were listed under Bowers’s name on the social media site Gab before the account was deactivated Saturday afternoon, could offer the clearest window into the mindset of the 46-year-old, who police say stormed Tree of Life synagogue shouting anti-Semitic slurs and firing an assault rifle in an attack that left 11 people dead and six wounded, including one in critical condition.

Gab, a social media site similar to Facebook and Twitter that is popular with white supremacists and other far-right figures, confirmed that it had deactivated an account in Bowers’s name following the shooting.

The account, which appeared to have been started in January, included a bio that reads: “jews are the children of satan.” His background photo was a radar gun that reads “1488,” a number that combines two codes — the “14” referring to a 14-word white supremacist slogan and the “88” being a neo-Nazi symbol meaning “Heil Hitler.”

Craig Timberg and Tony Romm report Mail bomb suspect made numerous references on Facebook to Russian associates and echoed pro-Kremlin views:

A Facebook account apparently belonging to the man charged with sending pipe bombs to prominent Democrats this week included references to Russian associates and propaganda links that echo Kremlin views on the Syrian civil war, alongside ramblings about soccer, women and U.S. politics.

Cesar Sayoc, 56, a vocal supporter of President Trump who was arrested in Florida on Friday and charged with multiple federal crimes, apparently spoke of “my Russian brothers” on several occasions on a Facebook page in 2015. The meaning of the references to Russians is not clear, nor is it clear how Sayoc came to view and share propaganda sympathetic to Russian actions in Syria.

Facebook removed the account from public view after news spread of Sayoc’s arrest. But The Washington Post obtained hundreds of public posts from 2015 and 2016 from Columbia University social media researcher Jonathan Albright, who downloaded them Friday before Facebook removed the information.

Discovering the Mystery of the Eagle Ray:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of fifty-three.  Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 5:53 PM, for 10h 29m 32s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, a Waukesha soldier sinks a Confederate ship:

On this date William Cushing led an expedition to sink the Confederate ram, the Albermarle, which had imposed a blockade near Plymouth, North Carolina and had been sinking Union ships. Cushing’s plan was extremely dangerous and only he and one other soldier escaped drowning or capture. Cushing pulled very close to the Confederate ironclad and exploded a torpedo under it while under heavy fire. Cushing’s crew abandoned ship as it began to sink. The Albemarle also sunk. Cushing received a “letter of thanks” from Congress and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. He died in 1874 due to ill health and is buried in the Naval Cemetery at Annapolis, Maryland. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, p.274-285]

Recommended for reading in full — Trump’s dark inspiration, a one-party outlook, conspiracy theorists stick with their false theories, Megyn Kelly has nowhere good to go, and video of NASA’s test of a Martian parachute —

 Rick Wilson writes Of Course Donald Trump Inspired Cesar Sayoc’s Alleged Terrorism:

For three long days this week, the Republican Party held its breath as a serial bomber sent a dozen devices to CNN’s New York headquarters, two former Democratic presidents, a former Democratic vice president, two former CIA directors, several elected Democrats, and Democratic activists George Soros and Tom Steyer. After months of rabid attacks on his opponents as enemies of the people, Donald Trump’s crop of crazy came to fruition this week and was almost ready for harvest. By either incompetence, luck, design flaws, or providence, none of the bombs in this campaign of political terror cost life or limb.

….

Introspection isn’t exactly one of this president’s strong suits, and the discovery that the MAGA Bomber was one of the millions of creatures he created, inspired, and motivated to wage war against those he describes as Enemies of the People will never trouble the placid waters of his stunningly shallow intellect. Worry about his responsibility will never penetrate the vacuum of his moral landscape. Trump made an enemies list, and then he weaponized his social media power to push that enemies list into the minds of the furious and febrile who slavishly lap up his every utterance. What, precisely, did he think would happen?

….

This is why we need to look objectively at Trump’s role in this affair. No one in American political life has even a fraction of his power to inspire behavior and action. No one. It’s time we recognize that Trump’s unique social media presence is a weapon of radicalization. No one else in the American political landscape stokes the resentments, fears, and prejudices of his base with equal power.

Trump always misses the chance to be bigger and better. He never fails to close the door on opportunities to be a consequential leader and not a winking, simpering buffoon who holds the title but never wears the mantle of the presidency. As we saw after Charlottesville, his defiance of every American norm and his eagerness to “both sides” every argument is an extended middle finger to our republic.

David A. Graham observes Trump Wants to Be President of a One-Party State:

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Trump sometimes yearns for a one-party state. It’s a thread that runs through his opposition to critical press coverage and threats to throttle the media, his celebration of violence against the press, his incitements to violence against protesters, and his threats to prosecute and imprison political rivals like Hillary Clinton.

The result is that Trump is unable to extricate a criticism of him from a criticism of federal-government policy, and vice versa. When, for example, Puerto Ricans complained that aid was not reaching the island’s residents fast enough following Hurricane Maria, Trump took that as a personal affront and launched a long-running feud with the mayor of San Juan. For Trump, l’etat, c’est lui.

This produces a strange transference that makes Trump the ultimate victim of everything. The bombs are an attack on him because he is the government; they are also an attack on him because he is the head of the Republican Party, which he fears might be hurt by the fact of political violence aimed at Democrats.

 Eli Rosenberg reports Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and others stick with conspiracy theories after mail-bomb suspect’s arrest:

The sending of package bombs to prominent Democrats and other high-profile figures this week was accompanied by a disturbing phenomenon. Baseless conspiracy theories, once confined to the fringes in the wake of violent acts, leaped with shocking speed into the mainstream discussion of the attacks.

A surprisingly large number of figures from the conservative establishment — commentators, radio hosts, a Trump family member, and other pro-Trump figures — shared, liked, hinted at, raised questions about or otherwise endorsed an evidence-less theory that this was a “false-flag” attack — one that was staged to advance the political goals of the very people it seemed intended to hurt (in this case, Democrats).

But the FBI’s arrest of a suspect Friday pointed to the hollowness of these claims, raising questions about why they were voiced on such a fraught issue in the absence of evidence. The bombs were not “hoax devices,” FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said Friday. The suspect, 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, “appears to be a partisan,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. And images circulating of the suspect’s van, which was plastered with pro-Trump and anti-Democrat imagery, and what was believed to be his social media feed, painted a portrait of a distinctly right-wing ideology.

Lloyd Grove and Tim Teeman write Networks Won’t Touch Megyn Kelly. But There’s Always Newsmax. (“Media industry experts told The Daily Beast that even when Kelly’s blackface crucible is finished, she will have very few career opportunities”):

Several media industry experts told The Daily Beast on Friday that even when Kelly’s blackface crucible is finished, she will likely have very few career opportunities—and none on a par with  NBC News. Perhaps she’d be welcome at a second-tier conservative-leaning cable channel like One America News Network or a local station consortium like Sinclair.

In recent days, executives at CBS, ABC and CNN—outlets that might once have jumped at the chance of hiring her—have displayed a decided lack of interest in her services; even Fox News, where she spent a dozen years and left for NBC after a series of controversies—including accusing the late Fox News founder Roger Ailes of sexually harassing her, an allegation he denied—has slammed the door on a possible Kelly return, issuing a statement that essentially said there was zero room for her in their programming lineup.

“She could be hired by an outlet that is not interested in attracting African-American audiences,” said former CNN President Jonathan Klein, who once wished he’d hired Kelly from Fox News. In those days, a decade ago, “she was an impressive, accomplished, tough, edgy, in-your-face, kickass journalist,” Klein said. But when she came to NBC and tried to impersonate a female-friendly morning show host, “she tried so hard to spin it the other way to the point where it never felt authentic,” Klein added. “I think what she needs to do is be her authentic self and find a media home that allows her to be whatever that is.”

 NASA is Testing a Parachute for Mars:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-two.  Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 5:54 PM, for 10h 32m 12s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1881, there’s a gunfight at the O.K. Corral:

a 30-second shootout between lawmen and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the Cowboys that took place at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. It is generally regarded as the most famous shootout in the history of the American Wild West. The gunfight was the result of a long-simmering feud, with Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury on one side and town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policeman Morgan Earp, Special Policeman Wyatt Earp, and temporary policeman Doc Holliday on the other side.

Recommended for reading in full — How national attention changed Scott Walker, tariffs shake Wisconsin, a reunion in Paris for Trump & Putin, Roger Stone in the spotlight, and video about a way to deter great white sharks —

Rick Barrett reports Wisconsin companies step up complaints on tariffs and trade wars at town hall meeting:

Higher tariffs cost Wisconsin companies $95 million in August, up 47 percent from a year earlier, according to new data from Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, a business group behind the town hall meetings being held in several cities.

The restaurant industry was part of the discussion because various products, from seafood to stoves, are subject to higher costs from trade wars.

It’s tough to pass the additional costs on to consumers through higher prices on the dinner menu, according to [executive vice president of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association Susan] Quam.

Peter Bildstein writes I Respected Scott Walker. Then I Worked for Him:

Even early on, however, I noticed that not everything was as it should be. At more than one Cabinet meeting, the secretary of the Department of Administration, Mike Huebsch, told us never to send him or the governor any electronic documents of consequence, and to avoid the use of our state-issued cellphones. “If you send me an important report electronically, I won’t open it,” I remember him saying, “and if you call me on your state phone, I won’t answer it.” If we had any important documents, they were to be “walked over” and hand-delivered to the governor’s office. As a result, open-record requests by the media or political opponents would be almost futile. This lack of transparency would be a hallmark of the Walker administration.

….

After he won his recall election, Walker rarely attended Cabinet meetings anymore, and radically reduced the number of one-on-ones with Cabinet secretaries. He took more far-right positions, probably because he thought they would play well with the Republican base. Funding for public education and our University of Wisconsin system was cut dramatically. Our infrastructure continued to deteriorate to the point that we ranked 49th in the nation in the quality of our roads and bridges.

 The Committee to Investigate Russia writes Meet Me In Paris:

National security advisor John Bolton met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for 90 minutes Tuesday and agreed to have President Trump meet with Putin next month on the sidelines of a World War I commemoration being held in Paris.

Bloomberg Politics:

The two leaders plan a “normal, bilateral meeting” on Nov. 11, Bolton told reporters Tuesday. It would be the first such encounter between the two presidents since July, when they met in Helsinki. That meeting was marked by Trump’s apparent acceptance of Russian statements that Moscow didn’t meddle in the 2016 election, a view quickly refuted by top U.S. intelligence officials and lawmakers from both parties.

Carol D. Leonnig,  Manuel Roig-Franzia, and
Rosalind S. Helderman report Special counsel examines conflicting accounts as scrutiny of Roger Stone and WikiLeaks deepens:

n recent weeks, a grand jury in Washington has listened to more than a dozen hours of testimony and FBI technicians have pored over gigabytes of electronic messages as part of the special counsel’s quest to solve one burning mystery: Did longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone — or any other associate of the president — have advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans to release hacked Democratic emails in 2016?

While outwardly quiet for the last month, Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators have been aggressively pursuing leads behind the scenes about whether Stone was in communication with the online group, whose disclosures of emails believed to have been hacked by Russian operatives disrupted the 2016 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the special counsel probe.

Stone, who boasted during the race that he was in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, has said since that his past comments were exaggerated or misunderstood. Both he and WikiLeaks have adamantly denied they were in contact.

This Is the Only Proven Way to Deter a Great White Shark: